Sometimes humor is unappreciated

Today is Tuesday and I sit here, staring at a blank page in WordPad (yeah, I use that... what's it to you?) and wondering what to chat about. This is chatting, isn't it? Just you and me... with me doing most of the talking, just like in Real Life.

I am back in rehab (no, not the Charlie Sheen or Robert Downey kind) again. The old knee is still in a bit of trouble. Still hurts when I do something unusual like.. I don't know... bend it. My doctor rightly figured I needed to build up the thigh muscles on that leg. And he also rightly figured I wouldn't do it on my own, that someone had to force me to do it.

You see, we tend to do the wrong thing when we feel pain in these cases. Pain is a warning from your body that whatever you are doing is probably bad for you. However, in some circumstances it means you did something wrong previously which left you with these pain reminders. In my case, the previous thing I did wrong was falling over that hassock back in March. I would like my body to stop reminding me of that.

Anyway, back to rehab where, this time, I will actually build up that needed muscle tissue. If for no other reason than I am getting tired of doing rehab.

The really strange thing about this injury is that it has not affected my golf game. I still play as badly as I did before it happened.

I understand Ricky Gervais got into some trouble over his jokes at the Golden Globe Awards show. It seems he offended the overpaid Hollywood elites with some mean spirited jokes at their expense. What a surprise! Hollywood stars getting offended when someone doesn't treat them like the Demigods they believe they are.

Here, judge for yourself:



I happen to like Gervais. He's not the funniest guy I have ever seen but he is good. But insult is his schtick, like Don Rickles...



We like to see the Hoity-Toity skewered from time to time but this dust up over Gervais' performance shows some people cannot handle it.

You gotta believe

There are certain things in life that seem to be cyclical. For instance, we are born toothless and bald and are put in diapers because we have not learned to control certain bodily functions. If we are lucky enough to live to a ripe old age, the odds are we will end up bald and toothless and in diapers because we have forgotten how to control certain bodily functions.

This came to mind last night during a conversation with Frances, my sister-in-law. Frances works at Publix cooking those tasty little dishes and handing out samples of same to customers. She has received numerous requests to come cook for customers as well as almost as many marriage proposals from single, older, men. I remarked that men reach an age where we stop looking for the "hot babe" and start seeking the "good cook."

I was fortunate, Faye was a hot babe who could cook. Time and circumstances have left me with the good cook and great memories.

Frances is a wonderful person and rally a lot of fun to be around. She's a bit naive, though, and gets suckered into all kinds of scams. She is a great believer in "natural" remedies, conspiracy theories, and the like. I , of course, am not. We have some interesting conversations.

Frances visited a couple of times when my mother was living with us to help take care of her. They got along famously as they had a lot in common. My mother was a dreamer, as is Frances. My mother always entertained me and my siblings and, I assume, my father with her get rich quick schemes. None of them ever worked out, of course. But there were often some good unintended consequences. She bought one of those books on getting rich through real estate. She got her real estate license and went about looking for houses she could fix up and resell at great profit. Didn't quite work out that way but I ended up with a place to live for awhile after I married the first time. I rented a house from her with the rent being the same as her mortgage payments. To be fair, I did help fix it up a bit. After we got rid of the termites.

Frances gets the bulk of the mail at our house. She is on every scammer's mailing list, I think. Natural cures for everything from diabetes to coronary heart disease. All of them sketchily documented and preceded by "What your doctors don't want you to know" in large boldface print. All she is required to do to learn about these amazing discoveries of what the ancient Egyptians/Greeks/Native Americans/etc. knew but were hidden by Big Pharma and the medical conspirators.

Trust me, I love Frances more than my own sister. Not a hard thing to do considering my history with my sister. But she frustrates me with her willingness to accept what "they" say about just about anything. She firmly believes in the 100 MPG carburetor (the automakers bought it and suppressed all knowledge of it), the natural cure for cancer (Big Pharma is keeping this from you), and so on. She also has the annoying habit of not paying attention to whatever is on the TV most of the time until some word catches her attention and then she interrupts with a multitude of questions about what is going on. I believe Frances is the reason the Pause button was invented for live TV. Well, her and bathroom breaks.

Frances has a green thumb. She is the owner of the Tomato Plant that has Eaten the Front Porch, a peach tree growing from a seed (she swears it is, I think it strongly resembles a weed), two avocado trees (started from avocado pits), a couple of aloe plants, and one non-producing (so far) pineapple plant (started from a pineapple). She started these because I brought home that sickly looking Key Lime tree which has managed to survive and produce. Now I can't stop her from trying new plants.

Our back porch resembles a greenhouse.

But we have fun.

A slightly different view of Tucson's tragedy

On January 8th, the nation was stunned by an outburst of violence that took 6 lives and injured 14. All of these lives were greatly impacted but only two have remained in the headlines on close to a daily basis: Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and 9 year old Christina Taylor Greene. Ms Giffords is alive, critically wounded by a gunshot to her head but alive. According to reports, she is making progress and there have been a lot of good signs. Christina is not. Christina and 5 others will never recover.

What bothers me is, except for the federal Judge, we have no idea who the other five killed were. Their families know. Their families grieve, their friends feel the loss. But the nation pretty much ignores them.

Sometimes, in a sense, we forget that the people killed have family and friends. We forget that these people are victims of the incident also. There are many people who are hurting in Tucson and elsewhere. And, in some cases, we choose to ignore the grief of certain individuals. Perhaps even maliciously.

The parents and family of the person deemed responsible for the shootings. Jared Loughner, as crazy as he is, hurt not only those 20 people and their families and friends, he also hurt his family and any friends he had. They are victims of this tragedy too. His parents didn't raise him to kill people. His friends didn't urge him to be violent. In a sense, Jared Loughner is a victim too. A victim of the madness which took over his life and made him commit this act. His life was destroyed too.

I wonder why we are spending so much time and concern on Ms Giffords. She is being given the best possible care and attention available. She seems a strong woman with a great will to live. I expect her recovery will be seen as almost miraculous to some. It is already being called a miracle that she survived a 9 mm bullet piercing her brain. I don't believe in miracles myself but I am amazed by this. Even though I knew a man in Jacksonville who was shot twice in the head at close range with a .38 caliber revolver and survived.

He was a friend I met while I lived there. I met him long after the incident which left him disabled and with brain damage. I am ashamed to say that I do not remember his name today. He was part of a computer club my wife and I became involved in during the 5 years we lived in that city. His handicaps caused him a lot of physical and mental anguish. He lived in fear of another violent encounter. He was left confined to a wheelchair and with a much shortened life expectancy.

He considered it a miracle that he survived. Maybe it was. Especially after you consider that he didn't have someone there to administer even first aid. He just laid there on the floor behind the counter until a customer came in and found him. No one fussed over him or his care in the manner that Ms Giffords experienced (and is experiencing) except his immediate friends and family. His name wasn't all over the news with regular press conferences on his condition and prognosis. No one came and made speeches about him, no one called for political unity in the wake of that crime.

Comparatively speaking, no one cared whether he lived or died except those who knew him personally. His story never hit the nation's headlines, much less the international ones. It didn't become a part of the national debate. It was just another senseless shooting during an armed robbery of a mini-mart. It likely made no more impact than a few lines, and maybe a couple of columns, in the local papers. Things like that are pretty much everyday stories.

In a way, I see his shooting as more of a tragedy because there were no circumstances which would have brought him to the attention of the nation. He was just a young man working in a thankless job for poor pay whose life was taken from him as surely as if he had died that night for a few measly dollars. He was no political figure, no one special. And so he's forgotten, ignored by the world.

I am offended by those who have seized on this tragedy to make political gains. I am offended by speeches by presidents at memorial services for little girls that reek of the manipulation of politics. I am appalled at the crassness of those who use tragedy for political purposes.

So my heart goes out to Ms Giffords (because no one should have to go through this) and to all who were injured or killed that day but a bit more to the ones whose names we do not know and to all the families and friends of those victims.

Addendum: I came across an article about Jared Loughner after being referred to an article at Wired.com. Both articles are interesting if you are trying to get an understanding of the motivations of Loughner.

http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/01/jared-lee-loughner-friend-voicemail-phone-message

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/01/secret-service-assassin-study/

You're a poopyhead!

I tend to get into arguments. Often. Always have. Even when I was a skinny little kid. It's not a smart thing to do when you are a skinny little kid. It makes me wonder how I managed to avoid physical altercations growing up. I didn't avoid them all, of course, but I can only remember a few. Less than a handful. And those were because I lost control. No, it wasn't ever me who threw the first punch. Even if that is a good tactic. I would say that my ability, if I kept my wits about me, to defuse the situation is what kept the physical fighting to a minimum. I somehow sensed when and how to ease the tensions.

I bring this up because of the events of the past week. There is a lot of heated debate over, well, heated debate. And, I am only a bit ashamed to say, I have been dragged down into that swamp. Because, as I said, I like to argue.

There is out there in the universe we call the Internet a number of places where one can comment. On blogs like this and also on columns written for newspapers. These comments often lead to public debates which more often than not would turn into fistfights if the people were within physical reach of each other.

What bothers me about this latest round of commentary altercations is the way that each side is blaming the other for the meanness, the crassness, the excessive level of animosity and name-calling. Sure, that's happened in the past, It also happened (often) in our childhoods.
"You're a poopyhead!"
"Am not!"
"Are too!"
"Am not!"
"Are too!"
"You're the poopyhead"
"Am not!"
"Are too!"
... and so on until an adult grabs both by the ears or they end up rolling around on the ground trying to hurt and avoid being hurt.

Even after the fight is over, even after the tears are gone, each will still blame the other, each will still think the other started it.

I suppose we have a long way to go before we grow up.

Kneeding a break

I have a doctor's appointment today. I would rather not go to the doctor. I don't often agree with them, it seems, and I have had some major differences with them over the years. But, alas, I really have no choice. The doctor who put my kneecap back together may have done something wrong, or missed a bone chip, or who knows what? In any event, the 3-6 month period of healing has now stretched into 9+ months and the last three have seen no progress at all.

This may be what I am stuck with. It may be the way I heal now. I used to heal quickly and completely. But I was younger then. At 64, I shouldn't expect the recuperative powers I had in my 20's or 30's.

Still, I suspect something has gone wrong that did not have to. So it's off to my primary physician (who specializes in sports medicine) for an evaluation. I am getting tired of dragging my left leg in and out of bed, the car, and across rooms (and the golf course, especially) and if there is anything that can be done, I want it done.

I mean, people have knees replaced and end up better off than I am right now... and in shorter time.

Addendum:

Earth must prepare for close encounter with aliens, say scientists

I came across the above just a few minutes ago. Ignoring the "fact" that they are already here (according to some) and have been visiting (and mutilating cows and abducting mentally questionable individuals for decades), I find it interesting that scientists seem to be actively pursuing extra terrestrial diplomacy. I just wish I had found this sooner...